Chalk

It’s about time we had some more Chalkboarding fun.

The evolution of Dickson Etuhu has been a triumph for those “wait and see” advocates amongst us.  I was impressed when he took care of the ball before without trying anything too risky, but he’s clearly grown in confidence and is developing into a good player.

Yesterday was a funny game for him in that he seemed to lose concentration a couple of times.   For a big man he has a beautiful touch on the ball, and his dexterity to make simple, first time passes, is nice to watch.   But a couple of times against Stoke he got his feet in a muddle, which people will remember, but I don’t think this really detracts from another strong performance.  2 or 3 silly but harmless mistakes do not wipe out 90 minutes of good work.   No, Etuhu’s become a useful player for Fulham, and I’ll be interested to see where his game can go from here.   Consistency will be the thing.

Anyway, here’s the chalkboard graphic:

Here we see his ‘perfect game’ against Portsmouth, in which all passes found a white shirt.    But he only made 18 passes, a reluctance on his part to impose himself, perhaps, and also perhaps his teammates not yet having learned to trust him.

Contrast this with Saturday, and we see not just more passes (many more), but more passes into dangerous areas.  Now he will look (and play) crisp balls into the front two.  They’re all good passes because he weights his passes so well, either slow enough for a teammate to gather, or fast enough to keep an attack’s momentum going, depending on what’s needed.   And he played a wonderful cross-field ball yesterday that I can’t see on that map.

So well done, Dickson.

Next, Stoke City, see you, wouldn’t want to be you, etc:

The first is Rory Delap’s contribution to the day’s passing.   How many of those arrows into the box are blue?  None.  Stick that up your shirt and dry it.    Take that away from his game (which we certainly did) and you’re left with a thoroughly futile performance.

The other minor curiosity is the chart of Thomas Sorensen’s goal kicks.   See how they’re desperate to avoid Paul Konchesky.  What?  Oh, right.   Anyway, the unsung Mr Hughes and the gloriously sung Mr Paintsil did quite well dealing with all them, doubly so if you consider that long balls and headers are Stoke’s speciality.

Finally, two more Fulham ‘boards:

I thought Joe Kamara played quite well, but does his board not illustrate exactly what our problem was in the second half?  A lot of passing right around the edge of the box, but nothing going in.   Where’s the clever spin, the one-two, the something or other to try to crack the oppo defence?  I know that Henry, Eto’o and Messi make it look easy, but sometimes our players can get frustrating in their reticence to try things.  By all means keep the ball and wait for that chink of light, but sometimes it does feel as if we’re waiting for the perfect moment to make a pass into the penalty area.

Against this, I quite suspect that Andy Johnson would’ve made something happen in the second half had he not gone off.  I watched him quite closely in the first and he seemed to have a bit about him, making some determined runs and causing problems for the Stoke defence.  I wonder if they’d have been able to keep him quiet all game, either directly (stopping him) or indirectly (stopping someone else from benefitting from his movement)?

Finally, a game to overlook for John Paintsil.  He got a bit of stick from the away fans for his acting earlier in the season, and perhaps it got to him.  Some of his passing was Quedrueuesque, which is rare because usually he does quite well on the ball.  He defended well again, but for whatever reason the passing was a bit off.   That dummy to win a throw in the second half was class though, wasn’t it?  Feigning a 50-50 then letting the ball dribble out harmlessly.